How Can I Find Peace?

How Can I Find Peace?, you may ask - particularly when you turn on your television and all you can see is war here and there, murders on the streets, robberies, rape, home invasions, bank foreclosures, divorce, etc, etc. 

In this blog I am looking into The Work process by Byron Katie which she says will bring constant peace of mind whatever might turn up in your life. The process is a very simple questioning of the thoughts that cause you distress and suffering.

My partner and I have been practising this method now for a couple of years intermittently. More recently we have been doing the process daily. Every thought that arises in our mind which causes us distress, anxiety or suffering in some way, we make sure we sit down before the day ends and start the questioning procedure in the "Judge Your Neighbor" work sheet, then we move on to the "One Belief at a Time" work sheet.

After numerous Work processes I am finding a gradual shift happening in my life to what Byron Katie calls the "Don't Know Mind". I had read of a mind state like this in the biographies of spiritual masters and other people like Eckhart Tolle who had life changing shifts in their perception of the world.

I can only describe the state as feeling very light, not bogged down with the need to 'make things happen' or 'plan'. For the first time ever in my life I am having glimpses of living life in a completely different way. It feels like an absolute certainty that everything is already handled - there is no need for me to know how it is - just a knowingness that this still, peaceful mind within me is guiding and directing everything in my life. There's a real sense of spaciousness and not needing anything to come to me from the outside.

Let's have a look at what happens in The Work process and why it can help you to find more peace in your life.

The "Judge Your Neighbor" worksheet requires a total emptying out of all your bitter judgments about others. It encourages you to be as mean spirited, childish and judgmental as possible. My partner and I have done this worksheet on aspects of our relationship that have caused us suffering in the past.

To be able to finally express all the things that you may have swept under the carpet previously, is a total release. Finally you can be real with another person about how their behavior has impacted on you. It's a very cleansing part of the process. The process itself acts like a mediator. The judgments are not expressed as "you did this or that", but, for example "Joe did/does this or that". By talking about the person as a third party entity, it is less personal and the effect is such that you start to see all your judgments are really just your stories about the person.

After this emptying out you then move onto the One Belief at a Time worksheet where you question your thoughts.
Is it true?
Can you absolutely know that it's true?
Who/what would you be without your thoughts?

Finally you then have to turn around your thoughts - firstly back to your self. So, if you have made a judgement about someone else, you need to find how you do this same thing to yourself. For example, your original statement might be "my partner is unloving towards me". In the first turnaround you would say "I am unloving towards myself". Then you must find 3 different ways that this is true. From this step you may get in touch with how you don't honor yourself in some way or you don't treat yourself lovingly and with care. Perhaps you drive yourself in workaholic ways or don't listen to your body's need to rest?

The second turnaround is to the other. Using our statement above you would turn it around to "I am unloving towards my partner" and then you need to find 3 ways that this is also true.

The final turnaround is to the opposite.Still using the original statement above this turnaround would be something like "my partner is loving towards me" and you would then need to find 3 ways that this is also true.

In every case, with some thought, you will be able to find that all possibilities do actually exist in this person. This process causes quite a shift in your thinking process as you start to see where you previously thought something or someone was 'set in concrete' or could only be viewed in one way, you are now able to see that this 'other' encompasses all possibilities and all opposites - all dependent on the thoughts you choose to entertain in the moment. You start to understand that there is no out there. It's all happening in your mind.

After doing a Work process you'll most likely experience a real sense of peace and a more loving feeling towards not only the person you previously judged, but the world as a whole. The "Don't Know" mind starts to creep in. You realize that nothing IS THIS or THAT. There's a simple acceptance of what is appearing in the moment and no judgment of it - just an ability to simply BE with what shows up and delight in that.

Katie says the tyranny of suffering arises out of being at war with reality. We experience suffering when we want 'what is' to be different in some way. After we do The Work process the mind naturally becomes open, flexible and allowing. Actually the mind as you once thought of it seems to step out of the way and an opening of the heart glides in.

If you think you would like some help to do this process you can email me to arrange a telephone or Skype appointment. If you haven't done a lot of inner work on yourself previously, it could be helpful to have some assistance, particularly if you're experiencing ongoing relationship problems. The raw honesty required in The Work could be very challenging if you attempted to do the process with the person you're having the issues with if neither of you have any prior experience with self inquiry.

For anyone who is wanting ongoing support to change your life with personal coaching, we offer a 6 month coaching program, a 2 Day Change Your Life Program (with 1 month follow up coaching) and weekly group webinars .